January 23, 2008

How to Lie About Lying

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

Now, would any disinterested party read the above -- and not think the study authors were accusing President Bush and his administration of deliberately lying us into war? Surely this subtextual implication must have crept in because of bad writing; I can't imagine that the elite media would be so intentionally partisan.

Here are the specific charges:

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

One notes that "Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members" -- isn't that a lovely grammatical construct? -- do not deny that Iraq was "trying to... obtain" WMD, even though they appear to include such claims under the category of "false statements."

Nor do they deny the administration's claim that Iraq had "links" with al-Qaeda. They merely dispute the meaningfulness of those links... and dub that another "false statement" by the president and his administration.

Here is that section from the report itself, from their database of "false statements;" it's a perfect primer on the anatomy of a falsehood:

In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."

This one is instructive to deconstruct:

What they say: "In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: 'Sure.'"

What they mean: Rumsfeld asserts that relationships exist between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

What they say: "[A]n assessment... found an absence of 'compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.'"

What they mean: The later assessment found that there were relationships, but they did not rise to the level of military alliances.

What they say: "[A]n earlier DIA assessment said that 'the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear.'"

What they mean: Before we found out the nature of the relationships, we did not know the nature of the relationships.

If you can find that Rumsfeld's statement (1) -- which evidently consisted of the single word "Sure" -- is falsified by either (2) of (3), please take to the comments and explain it to the rest of us... because to me, laboring under the disadvantage of having been intensely trained only in the lesser rhetorical art of mathematical logic, they appear to be able to exist in the same 'hood without bothering each other.

Here is another "false statement" (we are meant to understand "obvious lie") that the Center discovered, after digging deeply into the substrata of hidden rhetorical diplospeak. I must admit, this one was a marvel of original research that all by itself may justify the report -- if only to bring this one hidden, obscure falsehood to the light of day:

On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."

This is such an out of the blue, never before seen accusation that I haven't had time to formulate a response. He has me there!

Thus the massive database of dishonesty and mountain of mendacity they unearthed, dutifully reported by the Associated Press... with but a single effort to elicit a general response from the administration -- and no attempt whatsoever to delve into these alleged "false statements" to see whether there is even a contradiction between what the administration said and what the Center for Pubic Integrity said. Yet there is also this unanswered (unasked) question that seems somewhat pertinent, at least to me:

How many of these "false statements" were, in fact, believed true by virtually everybody, Republican and Democrat alike, when they were made? How many were parroted by Democrats, including those on the House and Senate Permanent Select Intelligence Committees, who thereby had access to the same intelligence as la Casablanca? The Center doesn't tell, and the incurious media elites don't ask.

This is as close as they come in their executive summary:

Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual "ground truth" regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who's Who of domestic agencies.

On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials [Eric Shinseki? Weasely Clark? Bill Clinton?], have publicly -- and in some cases vociferously ["rabidly" would be the better word choice] -- accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence.

A growing number of critics! Well, who could argue with that?

Here are a couple of inconvenient truths the AP story neglects to tell us:

"A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations..."

The Fund for Independence in Journalism says its "primary purpose is providing legal defense and endowment support for the largest nonprofit, investigative reporting institution in the world, the Center for Public Integrity, and possibly other, similar groups." Eight of the eleven members of the Fund's board of directors are either on the BoD of the Center for Public Integrity, or else are on the Center's Advisory Board. Thus these "two" organizations are actually joined at the hip.

"Fund for Independence in Journalism..."

The Center is heavily funded by George Soros. It has also received funding from Bill Moyers, though some of that money might have actually been from Soros, laundered through Moyers via the Open Society Foundation.

Other funders include the Streisand Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts (used to be conservative, but in 1987 they veered sharply to the left, and are now a dyed-in-the-wool "progressive" funder), the Los Angeles Times Foundation, and so forth. The Center is a far-left organization funded by far-left millionaires, billionaires, and trusts.

Even the New York Times, in their "me too" article on the data dump, admits that there is nothing new in this release... just a jumble of statements, some of which later turned out to have been erroneous, others which just constitute heresy within the liberal catechism:

There is no startling new information in the archive, because all the documents have been published previously. But the new computer tool is remarkable for its scope, and its replay of the crescendo of statements that led to the war. Muckrakers may find browsing the site reminiscent of what Richard M. Nixon used to dismissively call “wallowing in Watergate.”

By "wallowing," the Times means those in the terminal stage of BDS can search for phrases like "mushroom cloud" or "yellowcake" and be rewarded by screens and screens of shrill denunciation of the Bush administration... just as Watergate junkies used to do (without the benefit of computers) in the early 1970s. (Mediocre science-fiction author and liberal "paleotruther" Isaac Asimov called this, evidently without realizing the irony, "getting my Watergate fix.")

The Nixon reference appears to have been suggested by the report itself; the executive summary ends:

Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?

I'm certain it's sheer coincidence that this nonsense was spewed across the news sockets during the peak of the election primary season... and right before the primary in Florida, of all states. Had anyone at AP or the Times realized how this might affect the election, I know their independent journalistic integrity would have suggested they hold this non-time-constrained story until afterwards. Say, they could even have used the time to consider whether "Iraq and al-Qaeda had a relationship" and "the relationship didn't amount to direct cooperation" contradict each other.

A less charitable person than I might imagine this "database" was nothing but a mechanical tool to allow good liberals easier access to a tasty "two-minutes hate."

But realizing that the elite media has only our best interests at heart, my only possible conclusion is that, despite the multiple layers of editorial input that must occur at these venues, several important facts just slipped through the cracks:

The fact that the Center for Public Integrity is a Left-funded, leftist, activist organization with a serious hatchet to grind with the Bush administration;

The fact that the Fund for Independence in Journalism is neither independent, nor is it engaged in journalism (it's a front group of mostly the same people whose purpose is to shield the Center from lawsuits);

And the fact that the vast majority of the supposed "false statements" are in fact simply positions with which liberals disagree, or else statements widely accepted at the time that later investigation (after deposing Saddam Hussein) showed to be inaccurate.

I must assume that these self-evident facts must simply have been honestly missed by the gimlet-eyed reporters and editors at AP and the NYT. Heck, even Pinch nods.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 23, 2008, at the time of 1:55 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this hissing: http://biglizards.net/mt3.36/earendiltrack.cgi/2737

» George Soros Funded Study Says Bush Lied from Captain's Quarters
The AP reports, and the New York Times expands, on a new study by a supposedly "independent" organization that claims to have assembled hundred of "false statements" by the Bush administration in the course of the Iraq war. However, the Center for Publ... [Read More]

» Media calls Soros funded Report “Independent” from Macsmind
No REALLY!
“A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terroris... [Read More]

Tracked on January 23, 2008 9:35 AM

» George Soros Funded Study Says Bush Lied from On the Right
The Captain gives us a look into this bogus study.The AP reports, and the New York Times expands, on a new study by a supposedly "independent" organization that claims to have assembled
hundred of "false statements" by the Bush administration in... [Read More]

Tracked on January 23, 2008 6:06 PM

» 「イラク戦争の大義は嘘で固められていた」という嘘 from In the Strawberry Field
English version of this entry can be read here. このAPの記事 には唖然とした。これを日本語で説明しているこちらから引用すると、、 米国の調査報道を専門とする独立系報道機関「公共の完全性に関するセンター」（The Center for Public Integrity）は２２日、「イラク戦争・戦争カード―偽装に彩られた戦争への道」（Iraq-The war card orchestrated deception on the path to war）と... [Read More]

Tracked on January 28, 2008 11:39 AM

» The Council Has Spoken! from Watcher of Weasels
First off... any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now... the winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Energy Independence -- What It Am A... [Read More]

Tracked on February 1, 2008 1:40 AM

» http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/253984.php from Rhymes With Right
The winning entries in the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Energy Independence -- What It Am And What It Ain't by Joshuapundit, and The Conclusion We Dare Not Face by Dr. Sanity. Here is the link to the full... [Read More]

Tracked on February 5, 2008 2:19 AM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Fritz

All I can say is that Bush Derangement Syndrome has eroded the thinking and reasoning skills of so many people that I truly worry about the future of our country. What it has not done is eroded those same people's ability to put forth propaganda. Were there any remnants of intellectual or moral honesty left in them they would never have used the term "False," but would have used something like "Later proved incorrect." That they used the word "False," serves to prove them either totally lacking in knowledge of the English language or totally dishonest. While I happen to think it is the latter, they may be that uneducated as to the meaning of words.

The above hissed in response by: Fritz at January 23, 2008 2:29 AM

The following hissed in response by: MTF

Sedition used to be unfashionable. Congressman Vallandigham would be a Democrat hero today.

The above hissed in response by: MTF at January 23, 2008 6:04 AM

The following hissed in response by: brobin

Now Yahoo is featuring the story on its homepage with a photo of Bush:

"935 False Statements on Iraq

A Study finds Bush and officials made Hundreds of Untrue statements about Iraq after September 11th.

Find more on misleading statements

U.S. Military deaths in Iraq near 4000

Bush, officials made false statements on Iraq"

This is all by way of an intro. You have to click a link to get to the actual hit piece...story.

The above hissed in response by: brobin at January 23, 2008 6:52 AM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

The Fund for independence etc. etc. is the silliest name I have ever seen for such a group. English must be a second language, their first being BDS.

I'd love them to set up a similar database on liberals statements on Iraq, or for that matter welfare reform. So when liberals said the surge would not work, or that tens of thousands of American soldiers would die, were they false of simply incorrect? When they said that welfare reform would kill thousands of starving children? False or incorrect? I'd like to know.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman at January 23, 2008 8:55 AM

The following hissed in response by: snochasr

Please be careful with your posting. You could be injured lifting that much sarcasm, if you're not used to it.

Unfortunately, the major media and the left-of-sense crowd have succeeded in propagandizing this point into the general consciousness. Most people actually believe that Bush lied, when in fact he never told a single lie-- not one. My usual retort to such nonsense is to simply ask people to name ONE "known untruth told with the intent to deceive," and then wait for them to descend into sputtering incoherence as they realize they've bought into the Big Lie.

The above hissed in response by: snochasr at January 23, 2008 9:48 AM

The following hissed in response by: DubiousD

Notice how carefully they've parsed language. Nowhere in this summary

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

do the authors actually employ the phrase "Bush lied". Instead we get citations like this:

"... led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses." (Italics mine)

"... the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated..." (Italics mine)

"... President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis." (Italics mine)

And so on. In other words, even the authors' own document, while condemning the Bush administration in unequivocal terms, continually leaves open the possibility that Bush did not knowingly pass along false or flawed intelligence. Sympathetic readers are meant to come away believing that the authors have presented evidence that the Bush administration lied, but the authors never actually say that.

Cute.

The authors also fudge whenever they take a single dissenting voice in the imtelligence community and adduce it to a choir. Hence, a sentence that should have been written as

"... an Iraqi con artist, code-named Curveball, whom one American intelligence official was dubious about"

Geoman, they do have a such a "database", but they ignore it. They had claimed that "5000 bodybags" would be needed for American Troops killed during the "first year in Afghanistan", and same for Iraq, during the "first year." My favorite was, after just three days into Iraq, they reported that American "Troops bogged down in Iraq".

The above hissed in response by: Seaberry at January 23, 2008 12:17 PM

The following hissed in response by: T-Ray

I think it is hard to advocate for this administration being open and honest. I can't debate the validity of the claims for the occupation of Iraq. My basis for not trusting the claims made by our current governing body is simply that nothing they claimed to be true has been laid out as truth. Every action has been to obfuscate and obliterate anything and anyone that might disagree. These are not the actions of truth seekers. This is an agenda that few were invited to participate in and will be carried on to the last breathe it seems.
The claim of politically timed release of an article is rich. How many articles are bought and paid for by political operatives is widely debated, but not the fact it happens. The late Friday press releases are legend now with this administration, as well as the timing of the claims at debate here. It has all been hashed out over the past few years with little or no ramifications. That to me is a problem. Not of one party or another but of a whole new way of operating. I have hope that eventually all citizens will realize that no matter how good this atmosphere might feel for one party or the other currently, in the long run all of us lose.

Do they include any of the out-of-context quotes trumpeted mightily since 2003 or so?

E.g., Rumsfeld's "We know where they are" statement, minus the rest of what he said and similar?

Well, if you go to the link above for the report, they include a direct link to the database... and you can search for the phrase and see for yourself whether or not they count it!

(I would guess they probably do; I suspect they include every statement that could possibly be interpreted -- or misinterpreted -- to sound "false," no matter how viciously you must torture the English language to do so.)

Bush and those around him came into power with a predisposition to go to war against Iraq for a number of reasons, including ideology, oil, profits for their big supporters in military related industries and the desire to outdo daddy. Anything that fed into that mindset was eagerly accepted and hyped. Anything that challenged it was dismissed or ignored. They seem to have convinced themselves of the truth of what they wanted to believe, and in that respect they may not have been LYING. But they have been UNDENIABLY misleading. And the result has been the death and maiming of thousands of American service men and women along with unknown numbers of Iraqis, the devastation of the country, the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been used for pressing needs here at home and the inflaming of hatred against America around the world. It is nothing short of tragic.

The above hissed in response by: debpet at January 23, 2008 1:49 PM

The following hissed in response by: PC14

I saw that on Yahoo and went to the Center For Public Integrity's website since the BS detector was going off. I looked at the Board of Directors, saw a guy named Hodding Carter III. This guy screams far left. I checked his bio and caught "he was tapped to serve as assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Jimmy Carter, a role in which he most notably became the administration's spokesman during the Iran hostage crisis." Oh no, Carter works for Carter and the guy lets the world know he was the spokesman during the Iran hostage embarrassment. This smells real bad.

So I checked political donations for the 14 member board. Got hits on 7. All 7 gave significant amounts to Dems. Only Dems, not a penny to a Republican. One guy, Bevis Longhstretch, gave $7,600, spread amoung Kerry, Obama and Dean.

"...statements widely accepted at the time that later investigation (after deposing Saddam Hussein) showed to be inaccurate..."
actually many were statements widely accepted but that the white house knew to be at the very least questionable. ie aluminum tubes, yellowcake from niger, al queda connections, and so forth.
what interests me is how willing the far right is to defend the deaths of 4000 troops and the borrowing of two trillion dollars. you folks are parsing like crrrrrazy. i wish there was some way to see what you would be saying if a democrat had pursued such an assinine path. in my humble view war should be based upon iron-clad reasons. i don't think you should send 4000 troops to their death because you decide to believe some guy named curveball instead of your own intel services who say he is questionable. there has never been one justification, in the dozens given, that does not have enough holes in it to drive a fleet of trucks thru. to me it all boils down to that...if you can't give an iron-clad reason for war you shouldn't go. there never was a solid reason, and the white house had to spend all it's time hyping sketchy justifications...or in the case of valerie plame covering it's tracks...and in doing so it either lied, or mis-lead. i feel bad for the families of the 4000, and for the future generations that will be forced to deal with the two trillion borrowed to pay for this mistake.

The above hissed in response by: heynorm at January 23, 2008 2:18 PM

The following hissed in response by: PC14

heynorm,

You followed the yellowcake story, didja?

Excuse me for addressing a troll.

The above hissed in response by: PC14 at January 23, 2008 2:35 PM

The following hissed in response by: MTF

A study cataloguing the Soros funded "studies" that have been done to foster the misrepresentations this latest one did is sorely needed. We could hire the same clowns who did this study for Soros, or perhaps the Hopkins "researchers" who did the infamous Lancet analysis of war-caused marginal increases in civilian deaths in Iraq. That way, Soros couldn't object to their bona fides (Good for the goose, good for the gander).

"Just think--Instead of deposing Saddam Hussein we could have had "hundreds of billions" of extra dollars for welfare!"

And why do you assume I was talking about welfare???
. We need to be making major investments in our infrastructure.
. We need to be making major investments in the development and promotion of clean, renewable sources of energy, not just for the effect on the environment, but for the breaking of our dependence on foreign oil with all the economic and foreign policy problems that creates.
. We need to find a way to ensure adequate health care coverage for ALL Americans.
. We need to be doing more about security at ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities. There are still too many opportunities for terrorists in those areas, despite Bush's posturing about keeping us safe.

Need I go on? People who grouse about welfare inevitably wildly overestimate the share of the national budget that goes for that purpose. There are plenty of other critical needs in this country that are crying for adequate resources and are not getting adequate attention because so much of our resources are being poured into the bottomless pit of Iraq.

By the way, I notice that you picked up on a single phrase in my post, but did not challenge the basic premise, which was that the Bush administration only heard what they wanted to hear, and because of that they misled the country into war with tragic results. I still maintain that to be the case.

The above hissed in response by: debpet at January 23, 2008 5:01 PM

The following hissed in response by: SR

debper:
OK, enough. Haven't you drunk up all the Kool-Aid by now?
Give us one piece of evidence which proves your assertion
that the Bush folks "only heard what they wanted to hear."
You don't like pre-emptive war, all right, when the Dems are in charge next year we'll get to see how well your approach works out.
Oh wait, the Iraq deal will be over by then. Don't thank Bush and nearly 4000 brave service men and women for allowing you to go back to your soap operas.

Saddam was well connected to terrorists and their various groups, supported terrorism, and in fact committed terrorist acts and/or was behind such acts/plots as the one against a former President.

Saddam was well connected to al Qaeda and other Terrorist groups, thru the (at least) connections with Ramzi Yousef (Iraqi passport), Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (al-Qaeda member, and Yousef is his nephew), and Abdul Rahman Yasin (Iraqi heritage, and grew up in Baghdad, Iraq. “One of seven men indicted for 1993 WTC attack, with full knowledge and approval of US Attorneys involved in the case, Yasin was set free and encouraged to leave the US.” Leslie Stahl of CBS interviewed him, in Iraq, for a segment on 60 Minutes on May 23, 2002.

BTW, if the rest of the world "hates" us, then screw them. Also, War expense is needed when others have declared and conducted War against you, but we should cut down on the expense of - foreign aid, welfare, funding public schools that teach our children socialism, etcetera etcetera. Providing health care isn't the Governments job. America has more oil than the entire Middle East, if we include Oil Shale, but leftists won't let us use it.

I still think going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do regardless of the reasons given by the Bush Administration; however, the mission was bungled by Rumsfeld et al.

Most of our infrastructure that needs repair was never paid for by the federal government in the first place. Any notion that the federal government should be doling out funds, for example, to repair city and county water supplies, roads, or sewers is beyond ridiculous.

By the way, I notice that you picked up on a single phrase in my post, but did not challenge the basic premise, which was that the Bush administration only heard what they wanted to hear, and because of that they misled the country into war with tragic results.

Right; I didn't challenge your assumption... because, unlike blogs of a different political persuasion, I try to stay out of the core arguments that sometimes rage in the comments section. I see that mostly as a venue for readers to respond, not me to argue (that's what the posts are for!)

I usually only respond to factual inaccuracies, improper argumentation, or particularly silly things that strike my funny bone.

In this case, since you really want me to get into it...

Funding the vast majority of "infrastructure" in this country (bridges, roads, power plants, refineries, airports, utility lines and pipes) is the responsibility of the states, not the federal government. As for that infrastructure which is federally owned, such as the interstate highway system, the Bush administration and the Republican and Democratic Congresses have significantly increased their funding... even during the Iraq war.

They also dramatically increased spending for "the development and promotion of clean, renewable sources of energy." What we really need is not investment but cutting regulations that prevent, e.g., the widespread building of modern nuclear power plants (Integral Fast or Pebble Bed, for example).

Likewise, the Bush administration sought (but Democrats and RINOs defeated) much more exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Santa Barbara coast, in ANWR, and many other locations... whence we could have pumped oil in very large quantities to reduce our "dependence on foreign oil."

Ensuring that Americans have health insurance is primarily the duty of individual American families... not the government. The government can help by using tax incentives -- and again, by loosening regulatory restrictions -- on more types of private plans.

In particular, the combintion of MSAs and catastrophic care is an excellent, low-cost substitute for regular insurance for generally healthy people who don't think they need health insurance (mostly young people, who make up a whopping percent of those eschewing health insurance today).

Very little tax money is needed; an enormous proportion of those who don't have health insurance are, in fact, well able to pay for it; but being young and believing in their own immortality and invulnerability, they choose not to do. More flexibility in plans would resolve this problem without much government expenditure at all.

"Security at ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities" is a heck of a lot better today than it was on January 20th, 2001. Again, it's not a problem solved by throwing money at it. What we really need is more flexible "rules of engagement" for the military and lawn forcement officials in charge of such security.

Now, if your argument were that instead of overthrowing the fascist dictatorship in Iraq, we should have given those "hundreds of billions of dollars" (it's trillions, actually) back to the taxpayers and wage earners by, e.g., reducing personal and corporate income taxes, eliminating the death tax, eliminating or drastically restructuring the AMT, and spending a good portion of it fully privatizing Social Security and Medicare -- the two biggest unfunded liabilities in the history of the human race -- then you might have a reasonable argument.

Still, I suspect you would have a hard time convincing folks that "national security" was not a compelling national interest.

Befuddled are you ? Well most conservatives do see to be a bit confused now. I think it was the election of 2006, that and watching the whole conservative coalition shatter in 2008.

The above hissed in response by: john Ryan at January 24, 2008 6:55 AM

The following hissed in response by: john Ryan

Americans believe that invading Iraq was a mistake.

The above hissed in response by: john Ryan at January 24, 2008 7:02 AM

The following hissed in response by: Navyvet

I marvel at the precedent being set for future leaders of our country, be they Republican or Democrat.

If a President Hillary or her minions mis-state a fact or offer an opinion that later proves to be incorrect, will they be subjected to the same abuse as the Bush administration? Will she be excoriated for not having a crystal ball providing 100% accuracy for her every utterance?

This is a very demanding benchmark, indeed. It does not bode well for the future of our republic.

The Center is not “heavily funded” by George Soros or the Soros-funded Open Society Institute foundation. Neither Mr. Soros nor OSI funded our latest project, “Iraq - The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War.” The Center has received foundation support from the Open Society Institute in the past, most recently in 2004. The Open Society Institute, like most foundations, awards grants independently from their founders. The Center accepts support from many different sources, but regardless of the source, all of the Center’s projects are editorially independent and strictly managed by in-house journalists and staff. The Center has strict guidelines on revenue sources, for example, it does not accept contributions from governments, corporations, labor unions, anonymous donors and has no advertising. The bulk of our financial support comes from independent foundations and individual contributors. As a non-partisan, non-advocacy and independent organization, our mission is to produce original investigative fact-based journalism about significant issues of public interest to make institutional power more transparent and accountable. The Center does not and has never endorsed any legislation, political candidate, party or organization. All of our investigations are freely available, including a list of foundation funders and individual contributors, on our website, www.publicintegrity.org.

The above hissed in response by: publicintegrity at January 29, 2008 11:28 AM

Will you answer the underlying question at the core of this post of ours? The phrases you used -- "false statements," "false pretenses," etc. -- clearly imply that the Bush administration had intelligence showing that what they were saying was false; that is, you are strongly hinting (without actually coming out and saying) that they deliberately lied.

And I'm morally certain that is what you, personally, believe.

Do you actually have examples where virtually all the intelligence said one thing, and the Bush administration said the opposite? Because you certainly did not cite any such examples in your executive summary.

I am aware of cases where the intel was all over the map... in which case, any side the president picks necessarily goes against some of it.

I am aware of cases where the intel, universally believed, turned out (after we deposed Hussein and had the run of the country to investigate) to be wrong.

And I'm aware of many cases where the intel that the president relied upon turned out to be quite right, such as the intelligence supplied by the debriefing of Joe Wilson himself, which showed that the famous "sixteen words" were absolutely accurate.

But I do not know of a single case -- and you have not shown any such example -- where the intel all said one thing... and the administration said the opposite.

The reason I ask, Mr. Integrity, is that only case four could legitimately or honestly be called "lying." Since you clearly and unambiguously imply that the Bush administration lied us into war, I can only assume you have numerous examples where all the official evidence went one way -- and the Bush administration, knowingly and with malice aforethought, said the opposite to the American people or to Congress.

I'm not asking for cases where we might have been misled by "Curveball." I'm not seeking ambiguous examples, such as the aluminum tubes or the mobile labs ("Why, the Iraqis just had an urgent need to produce mass quantities of hydrogen in the field for their best-in-the-region weather-balloon program!")

I want unambiguous examples of flat-out lying... which is exactly what this report tries to convince us happened, without actually citing any examples of it. Strangely, you neglected to mention any such... but I'll give you the opportunity right here, right now.

Author of the Three Laws, "Nightfall", "Bicentennial Man", "The Gods Themselves", Foundation Trilogy, eight Hugos, three Nebulas as mediocre?

That statement says something. Being the gentle and caring person I am I won't say what that something is however I suspect the smog out in LaLa Land is actually second hand smoke from all that medical purpose marijauna found in vending machines causing hallucinations.

I mean like dude - you were nominated for a Nebula and a Hugo for a story published in ~~ cough - cough ~~ Asimov's. :>)

If one were cruel, which I am not, one could postulate that writing novels for, of all things, the STAR TREK franchise is a true - um... - example of mediocre.

Author of the Three Laws, "Nightfall", "Bicentennial Man", "The Gods Themselves", Foundation Trilogy, eight Hugos, three Nebulas is mediocre?

Yes. In fact, "Nightfall," the collection called the Foundation series, and the "Bicentenial Man" are all examples of mediocre stories. (The Gods Themselves is somewhat better.)

While Asimov always had an original stfnal idea, so did everybody back then. It's his execution that is wanting. Compare him to his contemporaries... Fred Pohl, Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Cyril Kornbluth, Fritz Leiber, Pohl Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Master himself.

Another problem is that Asimov never grew literarily. While Pohl graduated from the Space Merchants to Man Plus to Gateway -- and Heinlein went from the Star Beast to Starship Troopers to the Moon Is a Harsh Mistress to I Will Fear No Evil to Friday to Job -- Asimov's fiction writing in the 1980s was more or less what it was in the 1940s, except for some minor improvements in dialog.

The New Wave passed him by; I doubt he ever read England Swings SF, or any book by Michael Moorcock, Thomas Disch, Brian Aldiss, Norman Spinrad, Barry Malzberg, Chip Delany, or J.G. Ballard. The cyberpunk revolution in new-tech made no impression on him; do you think he even bothered to read Gibson, Sterling, or Shirley?

And don't even get me started on Asimov's oft-expressed disdain for 20th-century literary works outside SF. Trust me, he was not a fan of Kerouac, Burroughs, Heller, or Kesey -- or even Joyce or Miller.

And more and more, he allowed his nostalgia for the New Deal to infest his fiction with a rosy Rooseveltian hue that made his later works unreadable to me.

I mean like dude - you were nominated for a Nebula and a Hugo for a story published in ~~ cough - cough ~~ Asimov's. :>)

Yes, in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine -- edited by Gardner Dozois, a New Wave author. Isaac Asimov himself would never, ever have bought my story. (Neither would have his own pick for the first editor of the magazine, George Scithers.)

If one were cruel, which I am not, one could postulate that writing novels for, of all things, the STAR TREK franchise is a true - um... - example of mediocre.

But if one were honest, one would note that my Trek books were significantly better written than the vast majority of them. Ditto the game novelizations of Doom that Brad Linaweaver and I wrote, barring the first one: Each of the other three had real, honest-to-goodness original SF ideas. Considering that we wrote the first three in three weeks each and the last in two, that's a rather remarkable record.

And it does pay; or rather, it used to pay, but no longer. It paid for all my original work during that same period, since I was living on the Trek books.

And frankly, while none of my stand-alone novels yet published rise to the level of, say, the best of Leiber or Pohl or Anderson, each is, in my reasonably objective opinion, better written than corresponding novels by Asimov.

Of course, he sells a lot better; but then, so do Piers Anthony's Xanth books. And V.C. Andrews' gothic romances outsold them both.

You have to remember that Asimov started at a time when there was more premium put on the idea than the execution... on Harry "Hal Clement" Stubbs over Olaf Stapledon. If Asimov were to try to start his career in the 1980s instead of the late 1930s, I doubt he would ever have been published. (Have you actually read Asimov's earliest stories published in various places, including In Memory Yet Green? They're simply dreadful!)

By contrast, those of us who started in the mid-1980s had the misfortune to get into the biz at just the moment it was beginning to collapse under the weight of unexamined neophobia and unquestioned neoliberalism within the ranks of editors and publishers.

SF as a literary genre is now near death; it will only be saved if something is done quickly to break it free of the New York publishing mafia that has controlled it since about 1980. (SF publishing -- like publishing in general -- was always out of New York; but recently, it has been captured to an alarming degree by a leftist cabal, except for a few small niche markets, like Baen Books; it is that cabal we call the NY publishing mafia.)

I hope that Kindle and the Sony e-Reader, and e-paper in general, will be the dynamite that lets SF slip the surly bonds of Manhattan values... because if it doesn't take off in the next decade, we may find ourselves with nothing but old rehashes of previous work by the aging greats as islands in a vast sea of media-fiction mediocrity.

~~ note to self - never argue with a writer - in particular a damned good one ~~

Ok, ok - I give up. You are right on every point. In my defense, I met Asimov very early in my teen years. My Dad was best buds with Clifford Simak and as it happened, Issac Asimov (for a number of reasons). I am also dyslexic and basically taught myself to read during the '50s by reading and rereading Asimov and Heinlein over and over again. I'm a little biased. :>)

I grant that Asimov never really grew beyond his initial concepts. You and I will have to disagree about his relative "greatness" in the pantheon of early scifi. I've had this discussion before and think it's a relative agruement based on where and when you grew up - call it Old School vs Nu Skool. I'm 62 years old to give you a little perspective on my viewpoint.

In my view, he is as worthy of the term "great" as is Pohl,de Camp, Pratt, et. al. if only for the originality of his concepts.

Having said that, I would agree that Asimov was a pompous ass at times although he was very kind to me that day in my living room where he was discussing this and that with my Dad and Cliff Simak.

With respect to Star Trek, I did not mean to offer offense for your novels - it was said in jest. I've always viewed the Star Trek universe as liberal pablum served up with special effects and in truth have never read any of the novels. Even their "edgy" series "DS9" and "Voyager" were more of the same only darker. To make up for it, I will purchase your Star Trek novels from Amazon when I'm finished here and make an honest effort to read them. :>)

You wrote

"SF as a literary genre is now near death; it will only be saved if something is done quickly to break it free of the New York publishing mafia that has controlled it since about 1980."

and I couldn't agree more although I would put it back further in time to say the mid-70's.

It seems to me that good ideas are taken to extremes that ruin the original effect. Rachel Caine's "Weather Warden" series is, to me, a good example of this. All of her books would have made one good novel if all the extraneous nonsense was cut out - the idea is great, the execution not so much.

I also think that originality in today's scifi is at a premium. Good authors can't seem to find a voice that moves beyond the original concept expressed in initial novels. John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" was a great adaptation of Haldeman's "Forever War" with some very interesting ideas. The follow on novels didn't live up to the promise of the original being basically a rehash of the original in a different setting. I've seen this in other series - in particular with military scifi. It is depressing.

I also think that the interfaith (if you will) marriage of fantasy and scifi hasn't done the separate genre of "scifi" any good. To me, it's somewhat jarring to find Pratchett next to Pohl in the scifi aisle in Barnes and Noble.

It seems to me that mixing Green's "Nightside" series, or Butcher's "Dresden" series next to books like Kent's "Rogue Clone" series just ain't right you know?

To put paid to this rambling post, I offer this. We do have areas of agreement with respect to Asimov and we most certainly agree on the current state of scifi.

Sometime, I'd like to discuss it with you offline - perhaps we can start a movement, the young and the old.

You and I will have to disagree about his relative "greatness" in the pantheon of early scifi.

Oh, we don't disagree that he is considered great, nor that he is generally ranked with Heinlein and Clarke among "the big three." We just disagree on the merits of that designation.

I also consider the Beatles to be the most overhyped rock group in history. I don't say they're bad; I just say they're not "the greatest rock group that ever existed," or even close to that pinacle. So I have a lot of controversial opinions about art...

Having said that, I would agree that Asimov was a pompous ass at times although he was very kind to me that day in my living room where he was discussing this and that with my Dad and Cliff Simak.

If I had to guess, I would say that the conversation was to a large extent either about Asimov himself -- or else whatever subject he was interested in that day. <g>

My only personal interaction with the great man occurred at some convention or other. I saw him across the room; he was at the food table, and no one was talking to him at the time. I strode up, introduced myself (I'd had only a couple books published at that point), and began telling him how much I enjoyed his autobiography (In Memory Yet Green, In Joy Still Felt) -- which seemed to focus his interest from the table to me.

But then, about a minute into the conversation, he saw someone he knew across the room. Without a word -- and right in the middle of my sentence -- he beetled off, practically bowling me over. He had seen someone more interesting, so I simply ceased to exist. I became nothing more than a speed bump en route to his new destination.

That was the second most pompous thing that any pro did to me in my life.

With respect to Star Trek, I did not mean to offer offense for your novels - it was said in jest. I've always viewed the Star Trek universe as liberal pablum served up with special effects and in truth have never read any of the novels. Even their "edgy" series "DS9" and "Voyager" were more of the same only darker.

I couldn't agree more (and I don't read Trek books either, except my own). But one reason I consider my Trek novels better than others is that I consciously and with malice aforethought tried to subvert that liberal pabulum.

An example is my first Trek book, a DS9er titled Fallen Heroes (the editor at the time, John Ordover, decided on the titles; we had no input). The most hard and fast rule of the Trekverse was that no major character was allowed to die... so I wrote a Trek book in which I killed off all of them.

(I even suggested to Ordover that the back-cover copy, usually a brief description of the novel, should read simply "Everybody dies." Alas, he wouldn't go for it.)

In another one, I attacked the fundamental economic underpinnings of the Federation (which at one point I compare to a huge octopus, stretching its malevolent tentacles across the universe). We are told that "gold-pressed latinum" is the only substance that cannot be replicated; this is vital, of course, to the reintroduction of an economy into the the Trekverse, which the showrunners did in DS9... if you can replicate anything, why can't you just replicate money? End of capitalism, end of economics, welcome to the monkey house.

So in a book where I deliberately make the hated Wesley Crusher the main hero, the story revolves around Crusher's roommate at the Academy... who invents a way to replicate latinum.

In my Trek-writing career, I methodically set out to break every Trek taboo I could. Which was one reason I was eventually "fired" from writing Star Trek novels; though I think the main reason was that, when Ordover was ousted, they also got rid of ever author specificially associated with him.

To make up for it, I will purchase your Star Trek novels from Amazon when I'm finished here and make an honest effort to read them. :>)

If you do, when you read them, look for the Trek heresy!

But don't forget, I also have non-Trek novels. I have a science-fiction time-travel bilogy (two-book series) masquerading as a fantasy: Arthur War Lord and Far Beyond the Wave. Originally intended as a collaboration with Bob Asprin (of the "Myth" books), I ranged so far afield of his original concept that he nearly had a seizure when he saw the manuscript. We bought it back from him, and I published it independently.

I rather liked my first two novels, a pair of fantasies about the same characters, though not a series: Heroing and Warriorwards. The first is about the quest behind the quest; the second is about slavery -- pro and con.

And I have a trilogy of three young-adult adventure novels: Swept Away (again, not my title), divided into Swept Away, Swept Away: the Mountain, and Swept Away: the Pit. No SF or fantasy, but serial killers, a flood, mountain climbing, and a tall, somewhat Amazonian teenaged girl.

Post a comment

Thanks for hissing in,
.
Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

(If you haven't hissed a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Hang loose; don't shed your skin!)

Powerhouses

Milblogs

Bear Flag League

The Bear Flag League blogroll will resume when BFL switches from BlogRolling to some other link-management site that does not trigger "malware" security alerts. We apologize for the inconvenience, but, well, you know.